Craig Kieswetter qualifies for England

Well he's official English! He is probably the hottest young player on the domestic circuit right now and will no doubt be playing for England in the next few years. He's been excellent for us (Somerset) and he's played well for the England Lions as well.

Andy Flower's already said that he is watching him closely and that he will be pushing for a place in the England squad very soon. Great news for us English, although the South African fans must be gutted to see yet another quality player, one who would have been a perfect replacement for Boucher, play for England. What is up with your domestic structure? Seems every talented player wants to leave and play for England.

This is getting ridiculous. You've just copied another thread from PC word for word, you've even left the 'been excellent for us' in. Awesome.

As for Kieswetter. I would like to see him promoted to the England senior side for the T20's and ODi's. He's been excellent for the Lions (averaged 99 with a strike rate of 132 in the 4 T20's he's played) and has outperformed Davies in every single match so far. Prior's been terrible in ODi's too, so I'd love to see Kieswetter open the batting for England (alongside Cook I'd presume for this tour). I think a batting line-up of:

Cook
Kieswetter
Pietersen
Trott
Collingwood
Morgan

Looks a lot stronger than one with Prior in the side. I think Kieswetter could work well alongside Cook as an opening partnership, with Kieswetter looking to take the attack to the bowlers and Cook looking to bat through. I certainly don't think it'd hurt the side having Kieswetter in there in place of Prior.

Another South African amongst the ranks. My PG shield played against a guy called Sam Robson who played Aussie u19s but yet his gone over to county cricket to try and qualify for England. Gave him plenty.

In ODIs there is no justification for him being ahead of Davies whatsoever if you look at county records (in fact there's more than a small case for Davies to make the ODI side as a specialist opening batsman, even before his keeping gets added into the equation)

marc71178 - President and founding member of AAAS - we don't only appreciate when he does well, but also when he's not quite so good!

In Tests obviously Prior is doing juuuuuuust fine at the moment, but it's good to have contingency plans. Davies and Kieswetter are both just that. And I've always considered Kieswetter a better OD batsman than Davies, and clearly both are miles better there than Prior. Whoever does best on this A tour - clearly it's Kieswetter so far - should be being first in line.

Anyways if this "gap2" hadn't PM'd me a little while back I'd begin to think we had a 'bot.

Yeah, Prior's fine in Test matches for now, but he clearly isn't a One Day/Limited Overs cricketer. Most countries would have binned a wicket-keeper batsman that's not brilliant with the gloves and is averaging 24 at a strike rate of 74 with the bat with only 2 half centuries in 48 innings, but not England. I've been impressed with Kieswetter whenever I've seen him on TV. He looks to have some serious talent, and is capable of making the most of the powerplays. Also interesting to note that Davies has been dropped from the Lions squad, with Kieswetter taking the gloves for the game against England. I think that may suggest that Kieswetter is ahead of Davies in the pecking order.

Take him to the 20/20 WC. Poor keeper but better with the bat than Prior and could possibly solve the opening problem. Though going by the way he plays, I don't think he will enjoy the slow, turgid nature of the Windies wickets. Flopped in the Champions League and that was on wickets similar to ones that should be expected in the Caribbean.

This is getting ridiculous. You've just copied another thread from PC word for word, you've even left the 'been excellent for us' in. Awesome.

As for Kieswetter. I would like to see him promoted to the England senior side for the T20's and ODi's. He's been excellent for the Lions (averaged 99 with a strike rate of 132 in the 4 T20's he's played) and has outperformed Davies in every single match so far. Prior's been terrible in ODi's too, so I'd love to see Kieswetter open the batting for England (alongside Cook I'd presume for this tour). I think a batting line-up of:

Cook
Kieswetter
Pietersen
Trott
Collingwood
Morgan

Looks a lot stronger than one with Prior in the side. I think Kieswetter could work well alongside Cook as an opening partnership, with Kieswetter looking to take the attack to the bowlers and Cook looking to bat through. I certainly don't think it'd hurt the side having Kieswetter in there in place of Prior.

So when exactly can we start calling them the ECB Rest of the World XI and forget about this whole England nonsense. At the rate they're going England are gonna have more players from different countries than West Indies.

WoW, Pietersen, Trott and Kieswetter - all of whom are SAfrican. And all of whom, we should note, had some sort of British parentage, which obviously doesn't change the fact that they were SAfrican-raised, but there is at least some tenuous connection to the UK.

The fact that there is one SAfrican-raised player established in the England Test side and there are two more who may soon be means "England are gonna have more players from different countries than West Indies"? I think not.

I was kinda suprised when I heard he was going to try his luck with England and not return home, oppurtunities to play international cricket might have been greater with South Africa. One would think Boucher's career will be drawing to a close soon and Kieswetter would've been an ideal candidate to take that role long term. Whereas for England he's going to have Prior and potentially down the track Davies as major obstacles

Craig Kieswetter is comfortably the best keeper in England now. But the one stumbling block he has is that he actually performs brilliantly in domestic cricket and the selectors don't seem to like that when picking the team.

Welcome back. But would you seriously regard Kieswetter as the best wicketkeeper in the country? From what relatively little I've read from posters on here it seems he's not even all that good a wicketkeeper and that there might be concerns about his keeping being up to international standard, never mind being better than the likes of Read and Foster.